She is a very well-drawn and interesting character, whose conversations with her colleague, Neil Winston, are the chief source of wit and humour in a novel which, by its very nature, contains little of either. One thing obvious from the interview is that Harbinder is an intelligent woman who is determined to solve the case – a task that becomes more urgent as further murders occur. It isn't long before Harbinder Kaur and her colleague, Detective Sergeant Neil Winston, begin to interview the school staff, beginning with Clare. Clare finds it difficult to believe that the woman who had joined the school on the same day she did and who had become a special friend could have done anything to deserve such a death. It is shocking in its brutality – multiple stabbing – but particularly so because it happens to a woman who was well-liked by both teachers and pupils. The novel opens in sensational style with the murder of Ella, a colleague of Clare's in the English Department. In addition to these three narrators, we have extracts from Clare's and Georgia's diaries, as well as the continuation of The Stranger. The third voice we hear is that of a police officer, Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur. Georgia, her daughter, is 15, attends Holgarth High and has somehow managed to acquire a 21-year-old boyfriend. Clare Cassidy, a divorcée, is a member of the English department at Tolgarth and also teaches creative writing to adults in the old building. The story is told from the point of view of three main characters. It is rumoured that Holland murdered his wife, Alice, and that her ghost haunts the old building. Originally known as Holland House, it belonged to RM Holland, a reclusive 19th century writer of Gothic novels, and looks very much like an Oxford college.
Whilst the new one, where most of the teaching takes place, is an undistinguished 1970s affair, the old one is more interesting. Tolgarth is divided into the old and new buildings. The story continues piece by piece throughout the novel and is used to set the tone – one of horror and suspense – for the 21st century happenings in Tolgarth High School, Shoreham-on-Sea, West Sussex. The novel opens with the beginning of a short story, The Stranger, by a fictitious 19th century author, Robert Holland.
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